Kunstler and I have pretty much ome to the same conclusion. Our decadent, evil culture will be our downfall. We just moved deeper into this Fourth Turning Crisis.
America the Horror Show
By James Howard Kunstler
on December 17, 2012 9:26 AM
Finally the USA has an act that perfectly expresses its true spirit as the horror show nation among nations: the random mass slaughter of little children by a maniac. Is it not so that the failure to protect little children from harm is the most shameful weakness an adult human can present?
Next, of course, comes the empty ritual of pretending that we must make sure something like this never happens again. How? By some forensic inquiry into the psychology of the shooter, Mr. Lanza… his comings, goings, email musings, Netflix rentals, chemical composition of his fingernail clippings? We flatter ourselves with the technocratic conceit that if we can measure something enough, we can control it. Ban assault weapons or tighten up the background checks? The horse is out of the barn on that one. There are enough weapons loose in the USA to conduct a full-scale Civil War right now. And probably enough ill feeling. Just pick the flavor of the conflict you want: ideological? Religious? Racial? Regional?
For what it’s worth, the Newtown Massacre to me is largely about the failure of men in America, and in particular the failure of men to raise up male children into men. The tragic monster that Mr. Lanza grow up into lived with Mom and ended up parking four bullets in her brain. Imagine the tensions in that monster. It’s not an accident that the commercial fantasies represented in movies and television aimed at boys are populated by legions of super-heroes. This sort of grandiosity — the wish to project supernatural powers — is exactly what you get in boys who have not developed competence in any reality-based, meaningful realm of endeavor — and I wouldn’t necessarily include school, such as it is in our time, as a reality-based, meaningful realm of endeavor, since it is mostly a brutally boring accreditation process. Notice, Mr. Lanza’s chief instrument of death was the “Bushmaster.” His weapon made him a “master” of something, at least, even if it was just the systematic slaughter of six-year-old kids and the women in charge of them.
History has its own arcs and particular moments in history have their own spirits of the time. This moment for us is the sum of the unintended consequences of countless bad choices we’ve made for many decades against the backdrop of enormous material riches. I’ve inveighed against these manifold fiascos enough for this audience. The net result is a nation that has turned men either into weaklings, fakes, or monsters. I think the greater tragedy is that we are past being able to teach ourselves how to act and now it is up to nature and history to provide the only kind of instruction we can understand.
I used to crack a joke when showing a particular slide in my visiting college lectures that “we’re a wicked people who deserve to be punished.”
It’s not so funny anymore. Look around at the squalid mess that America has made of its own terrain: the endless wastelands of free parking and slumping strip malls, the wilderness of tract housing subdivisions, the cities left cored, rotting, and stinking in the fall drizzle, the countless redundant roadways — and while you’re at it, take a good hard look at the depressing and disgraceful industrial boxes that school is conducted in, these euphemistically-named “facilities.” We live in physical surroundings that are the perfect growth medium for serial killers, mass murderers, psychopaths with no feeling, and sado-masochists preoccupied only with the ritual orchestration of their own shame and guilt in the service of inflicting pain.
Let me remind you that there is a range of thought and feeling evinced in human culture that no longer exists in America. These things were called virtues. They are qualities in thought and action related to goodness and excellence, and they are in very short supply these days in the USA, though we are well-supplied with fakes and approximations of virtue — such as the moments of sham heroism witnessed yesterday afternoon and evening by men watching televised football. What matters now is that an epochal undertow of events is dragging this enormous nation into an economic convulsion that will inevitably turn political. I don’t think that our society can be redeemed in its current form. It has to pass through a tribulation that demands the reemergence of adult male humans who know how to be men in more than one dimension. And you who make it through to the other side will barely comprehend the monsters left behind, or how they made themselves that way.
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Another stunning example of the Bizarro Mental World of JHK.
He wants men to be men, not super heroes.
He laments the lack of “virtue” in American society. (Wonder how he felt about William Bennett’s book “The Book of Virtues?)
He says that American men have failed to raise boys into men.
He states that are men have become fakes, monsters, weak.
Okaaayy.
Yet he belongs to the Democrat party and supports Obama!
Yes, the Dems, lead by Obama, that has done more to destroy the nuclear family than even the Soviets could manage, with their promotion of single motherhood, samesex marriage, abortion and birth control on demand.
The party that promotes moral relativism.
The party and president that is totally in bed with the Hollywood cutlural cesspool that is making billionaires out of the peddlers of violence and the destruction of virtue.
The party that is actively destroying the very WESTERN civilization and Judeo-Christian values that seemed to create pretty good men, albeit white ones, prior to this cultural assault.
Oops, better not say “assault” in the same venue as this, might be construed as too, ahem, masculine.
See the problem?
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17th December 2012 at 10:47 am
OF says:
There was a documentary on ARTE a couple days ago about the collapse (even called “collapse”) including an interview with Kunstler…
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17th December 2012 at 11:06 am
BamBam says:
Sorry, but his line about superheroes throws me, even before the rest of his shoddy article. Superpowers have been common in literature since King Arthur. Also, a good story is a good story.
Sounds to me like James Howard Kunstler (just who the hell uses their middle name like that?) is pretty much a pissy bitch who criticizes other people as a form ego-masturbation and doesn’t actually give a damn about the actual problem. His entire point could be boiled down to that “not everyone shares my taste, and its all their fault”.
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17th December 2012 at 11:21 am
anon says:
Yeah, millenial men need to step up as rugged masculine individuals after being over-mommied, discouraged from physical play, forced into repetitive clerical work (‘school’) which is submission training first and foremost. Add in some snarky parental disapproval when millenial can’t find a job (HEY IT WAS EASY FOR US YOU LITTLE SHIT), a little philosophical confusion from twisted academic worldviews, a little homoeroticism and complete lack of role models from TV… then when occupy pops up at least pointing a finger at the problem, ridicule them and literally beat them with sticks until they disappear from the streets. maybe these guys feel like I do, which is a giant FUCK YOU to the whole ridiculous system of hypocrisy. But it seems like many of them never even get that far, still slaving away at pointless internships (very empowering in your late 20s) trying to get somewhere in a system that will only torture them until they abandon it…
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17th December 2012 at 11:43 am
Eddie says:
He’s dead right about the de-masculinization of the modern male…not just the American male, but all the males in the modern “civilized “world.
And Hope, you’re right that Kunstler is demonstrating some kind of split personality. He obviously sees part of the picture here, but doesn’t see his own participation in perpetuating the very paradigm he’s complaining about. But I too have been guilty in the past for voting “against” the candidate I found more repugnant. In the last election, there was a clear choice, and JHK, along with 98% of the voters, chose to ignore that choice.
Weapons are weapons. We have a lot of them, but the training is lacking. You can’t put weapons in the hands of the untrained or the unworthy and expect anything but a bad outcome. Once upon a time fathers taught sons about using weapons…now fatherless boys learn about guns from TV, movies and games. One problem. that shit ain’t real, and guns are real.
Part of learning about weapons is learning about death. Most people in our culture don’t ever see or even understand the awesome destruction that is killing another living being, much less another human. We used to see death first hand, as a normal part of our lives, but now it’s hidden like it doesn’t exist.
And once upon a time, fathers of dangerous idiots kept guns away from them,as an act of fatherly responsibility. Now, such fathers evidently just ask “Why”, like everyone else.
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17th December 2012 at 12:03 pm
Ron says:
Anouther dumb article by Kuntster.
Here try this one.Everyone is so busy making money and trying to get by that they dont spend any time teaching theyre kids right from wrong.(or the parents werent taught this either) So many people who shouldnt have kids.
Really messed up prioritys out there.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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17th December 2012 at 12:24 pm
AWD says:
JK presents the problem, but does little to explain what caused it or the implications. Our country, destroyed by unintended consequences, too numerous to mention, but in regards to this essay;
Women’s rights. Divorce skyrockets from 10% to 50%, women’s rights means women’s entitlements, like every other “rights” movement. Women entitled to 1/2 of everything, alimony and child support, and fathers are able to see the kids once a week it they’re lucky. Ergo, kids without dads, 50% of the kids. Boys without dads, or worse, evil step dads. The pathology is incalculable. Broken homes, children born out of wedlock, welfare moms, baby daddies, death of the nuclear family.
Men are then lobotomized by ESPN, sports, beer commercials, truck commercials, porn, and the hundred other “circuses” out there.
And, men have no balls anymore, literally. The testicles produce testosterone, but 2/3 of American men are obese, which means the testosterone gets converted to estrogen by the aromatase enzyme in adipose (fat) tissue. 2/3 of men in this country are literally castrated, at least as far as hormones go, and have high circulating levels of estrogen, so are, hormonally speaking, women.
And obese women have circulating testosterone, from the same process in reverse.
At least men have moobs to play with, the result of the fine estrogen coursing through their systems. They aren’t men though. Anatomically men, hormonally women. See the problem?
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17th December 2012 at 12:45 pm
AWD says:
Glad Admin wrote a new article, so we don’t have to see Jack every time we load the TBP home page.
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17th December 2012 at 1:20 pm
Kill Bill says:
Great, we need obese women with testosterone coursing thru their adipose circulating pumps and swollen male ovaries to protect our children from the INTJ nut jobs.
See, we should hold schools in Walmart. Angry human shields on rascal wheels.
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17th December 2012 at 2:17 pm
Stucky says:
Wow. When did Kunstler get such a strong set of supporters here?
According to the modified Briggs-Meyer personality test, Kunstler is;
Cocksucker
Useless
Nonthinking
Tiresome
I think that translates to CUNT.
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17th December 2012 at 2:26 pm
Stucky says:
” … the Newtown Massacre to me is largely about the failure of men in America, and in particular the failure of men to raise up male children into men.”
“Let me remind you that there is a range of thought and feeling evinced in human culture that no longer exists in America. These things were called virtues.”
.
Those two sentences ….. he nails it.
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17th December 2012 at 2:35 pm
Der Scheisskerl says:
Here is a list of shooting incidents and the
Medications the shooters were on.
http://youtu.be/UhO0Pul_FcE
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17th December 2012 at 3:49 pm
Wood Burner says:
“For what it’s worth, the Newtown Massacre to me is largely about the failure of men in America, and in particular the failure of men to raise up male children into men.”
Kunstler is precisely the type of male who would curl up into a pustule of trembling cowardice if confronted with a real life or death situation.
” Look around at the squalid mess that America has made of its own terrain: the endless wastelands of free parking and slumping strip malls, the wilderness of tract housing subdivisions, the cities left cored, rotting, and stinking in the fall drizzle, the countless redundant roadways — and while you’re at it, take a good hard look at the depressing and disgraceful industrial boxes that school is conducted in, these euphemistically-named “facilities.””
Not where I live. People are still human here. We see God every time we step outside. JHK needs to get out of the shit hole he inhabits and connect with what is real again.
Those institutions are created by the same kind of people who control the government. The embodiment of evil. They are the ones drugging ‘problem children’ and creating true monsters.
The Bushmaster never left the trunk, according to the latest ‘reports’. And it was not his weapon-he murdered his mother and stole it. Not that we’re ever going to get the truth about any of this
Want to know how to deal with monsters? Kill them. Just kill them.
If there had been even one armed teacher in that school it’s possible that none of those children would have been murdered. If there had been two or more armed teachers then it’s highly likely that no children would have died. As a country we need to let men be men again and not enact laws that will prosecute them for defending the lives of those they are responsible for. We need to wake the fuck up.
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17th December 2012 at 4:10 pm
Dorkus Maximus says:
“Virtue”, as well as much of the accumulated wisdom of humanity, has been under assault by the baby boomer generation since the late 60′s. “Men” as Kunstler uses the term (meaning males who demonstrate honor, courage, virtue and protective strength) have been ridiculed and ostracised in the culture and punished by the feminist court system for 50 years. So yeah, there’s not many out there. (See: Consequences – natural and probable).
It’s not accidental either. Its Marxism 101. Unleashing human depravity creates calls for more and more government to save the people from themselves, eventually socialist utopia results. Of course they’ll need to be relieved of their rights along the way.
Left wingers have orgasms every time these shootings happen. They LOVE LOVE LOVE the Adam Lanza’s of the world. Don’t let their faux indignation confuse you.
In the days of my youth, the Adam Lanza’s of the world were either institutionalized or, if not completely mentally ill, they were bullied vicously and without mercy until they either toughened up or killed themselves.
Today’s Adam Lanza’s are babied, coddled and cared for. Lanza was subhuman garbage who should have been culled from the human herd. Men of older, better times would have never tolerated the existence of this waste of flesh. He would have been bullied to his death during his teens or locked away somewhere never to see the light of day. Then the baby boomers came along to tell us that no one was “good” and no one was “bad” and who were we to judge other people and that the only thing that was wrong was “intolerance”. So now we tolerate and don’t judge the Adam Lanza’s of the world until they kill us. We are truly the idiocracy.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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17th December 2012 at 5:41 pm
Kill Bill says:
Dorkus, thats some seriously fucked up logic.
Yes, we should be like the Spartans and throw imperfect babies off the cliff?
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17th December 2012 at 5:55 pm
Eddie says:
In the days of our distant ancestors the Adam Lanzas of the tribe would have had their behavior tempered by their elders, who might have helped someone like that figure out something he could do that was productive and worthwhile. Failing that, he would have probably been kicked out of the tribe and left somewhere to die.
Babies with bad problems were often euthanized up until a few generations ago. It was considered merciful to do so, where we now consider it more merciful to to keep them alive at astronomical cost, no matter whether we can truly afford as a society to do so. I don’t see our present way as sustainable, just sayin’.
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17th December 2012 at 6:34 pm
Bob says:
All the gibberish aside, maybe this is what we need:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP9n0gWJvqQ&feature=player_detailpage
It may really be too late.
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17th December 2012 at 8:54 pm
Dorkus Maximus says:
Kill Bill: you raise a straw man argument. Lanza wasn’t a baby – he was 20. His problems became very apparent during his teens. The school assigned him a personal psychologist. His mother warned one of their neighbors “don’t turn your back to him” He was a fucked up weirdo who should have been stomped on.
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17th December 2012 at 8:18 am
Evomotor says:
Hey fellow Masterminds, do you notice the ignorance in Kill Bill’s first post?
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17th December 2012 at 10:34 pm